Reply #31: Much Appreciated, Sir. As A Thought Experiment, It Is Quite Apt, And Instructive

[The Magistrate]

Certainly people who trumpet 'bipartisan governance' really have no ground to complain of 'bipartisan voting' or 'bipartisan campaigning', or, in other words, of people who spend the weeks before an election talking up how good some of the other party are, and people who vote often for candidates of the other party.

The problem is that this is a two-handed game, which only works if both parties work their hands as hard as they can. Does anyone doubt, for instance, that if a Republican majority is in the House next year, Impeachment will not be a common topic, and obviously being worked towards? So long as only one side plays for keeps, this disequilibrium will continue, because there is no cost to be paid, no pay-back that ever comes.

Worse, people who say they do not like partisan fighting in Washington are mostly just saying what they think they should say. Everyone said they thought there was too much focus on Mr. Simpson's trial, but everyone followed it, to a point that it is not necessary for me to say which Mr. Simpson in this illustration. The fact is people like the brawling, find it entertaining, and use it as the means of gauging who they will align with. The mush in the middle, the so-called 'independents', are not moved by reasoned argument or even well-calculated self-interest: they are moved by their guess of who will win, which they take as being who is the most passionate and single-minded in advocacy for their own position. It used to be cruelly said 'A liberal is a man who won't take his own side in a quarrel', and there remains way too much of truth in the gibe to this day.